Skip to main content

Home/ Groups/ BCU Library
Sara Thompson

Information Technology and Libraries: Vol 31, No 1 (2012) - 1 views

  • Articles Copyright: Regulation Out of Line with our Digital Reality? PDF Abigail J. McDermott 7-20 Library Use of Web-based Research Guides PDF Jimmy Ghaphery, Erin White 21-31 Investigations into Library Web-Scale Discovery Services PDF Jason Vaughan 32-82 Usability Test Results for a Discovery Tool in an Academic Library PDF Jody Condit Fagan, Meris A. Mandernach, Carl S. Nelson, Jonathan R. Paulo, Grover Saunders
  •  
    First open-access e-version issue
Sara Thompson

A Post-LMS World (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE - 1 views

  • According to Babson Survey Research Group, 65 percent of all reporting higher education institutions said that online learning was a critical part of their long-term strategy, and over 6.1 million students took at least one online course during the fall 2010 term—an increase of 560,000 students over the previous year.
  • A post-LMS world does not suggest that the LMS is obsolete but, rather, that the practice of evaluating learning outcomes through a traditional LMS as the sole means for knowledge acquisition is obsolete. The original design of the LMS was transactional and largely administrative in nature, hence the “M” in “LMS.” The function of the traditional LMS is to simplify how learning is scheduled, deployed, and tracked as a means to organize curricula and manage learning materials.
  • LMS 3.0 design focuses on four essential applications: learning grids; e-learning intelligence; content clouds; and open architecture.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Effective LMS 3.0 learning grids create and inspire greater user independence and self-governance to facilitate effective content-creation capacities and new crowd-sourced intellectual property through the personalization of a vast array of information sources. LMS 3.0, properly designed, creates reliable content that facilitates learning through organized interaction and communications processes that include the widest-possible spectrum of points of view.
  • LMS 3.0 information architecture plays an increasingly important role as the gravitational pull for core strategies in assessment, engagement, retention, and outcomes.
  • Tracking learning events is crucial, but ultimately faculty are interested in the kind of learning that yields positive behavioral changes reflected in outcomes and a mastery level leading to a seamless transition to the workforce.
  • LMS 3.0 design expands functionality to include open, flexible digital repositories with components that add context through outcomes measurement, social curation, reporting, analytics, and extensive sharing capabilities.
  • Higher education is increasingly embracing a more open future, and next-generation LMS design needs to commit to an open ideology.
  • Moving from LMS 1.0 environments that do not offer long-standing, established community contributor models—from the perspective of both source code and open content—to a truly open environment will be a critical success benchmark for the post-LMS era.
  • Effective e-learning design, as a lowest common denominator, will embrace nimble, interoperable, modular infrastructure in ways that make learning contemporary, relevant, and engaging.
  •  
    An interesting opinion piece on the future of the LMS.  Try reading this and replacing "LMS" with "library database" ... what would that look like? 
Mark Lindner

At Last: Our Publicly Accessible Portal to Search, Browse, and Read ECCO-TCP ... - 1 views

  •  
    I'm delighted to report that this is no longer the case: the University of Michigan-based implementation of the ECCO-TCP texts can now be fully explored by the general public: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/.
fleschnerj

Learning Spaces - 1 views

  •  
    A sample chapter out of the book, Learning Spaces. This chapter focuses on Virginia Tech's Math Emporium.
Sara Thompson

Information Literacy Instruction and Student Achievement | ACRL Value of Academic Libra... - 1 views

  • Early last month Megan posted about recent research connecting academic libraries and student achievement. She mentioned that there are multiple projects in the U.S. currently underway to correlate library use and GPA, and I have results from just such a project to share with you all!
  • In a recently completed study at University of Wyoming I discovered a positive correlation between upper-division library instruction and higher GPA at graduation (by upper-division, I mean post-first-year). This is based on an analysis of 4,489 transcripts of graduating seniors at the University of Wyoming, and the transcript analysis was supplemented by focus groups with graduating seniors
  • Look for the article in the March or June 2012 issue of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. Here’s the citation: Bowles-Terry, M. (2012). Library instruction and academic success: A mixed-methods assessment of a library instruction program. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.
Deb Robertson

Is There a Difference Between Critical Thinking and Information Literacy? | Weiner | Jo... - 1 views

  •  
    This paper investigates the similarities and differences between two important ideas in information processing and knowledge utilisation. Those ideas are [critical thinking] and [information literacy]. This suggests that [information literacy] and its associated procedures could significantly augment current instruction in [critical thinking] and indeed, the possibility has been explored by some authors in the current literature. A merging of the two ideas would involve [information literacy] providing tools and techniques in the processing and utilisation of knowledge and [critical thinking] supplying the particulars and interpretations associated with a specific discipline. This type of integration could lead to instructional programs similar in concept and application to those in research methodology where methods from statistics are integrated with the techniques and skills associated with a specific discipline. The development of a curriculum of this type would change functions and perceptions from private, individualised mentation, now associated with [critical thinking], to a more easily learned and practiced process suitable across the breadth of disciplines.
Sara Thompson

Nobody cares about the library: How digital technology makes the library invisible (and... - 1 views

  • Yet, while it is certainly true that digital technology has made libraries and librarians invisible to scholars in some ways, it is also true, that in some areas, digital technology has made librarians increasingly visible, increasingly important.
  • The invisible library
  • Let me offer three instances where the library should strive for invisibility, three examples of “good” invisibility:
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Search:
  • APIs and 3rd party mashups:
  • Social media:
  • The visible library
  • Focus on special collections
  • Start supporting data-driven research
  • Start supporting new modes of scholarly communication—financially, technically, and institutionally.
  • Here I’d suggest tools and training for database creation, social network analysis, and simple text mining.
  •  
    Skip the first bit about the Chuck clip - not important and too long. Scroll forward to the part starting with "The Invisible Library" -- excellent food for thought about the roles we play. 
Mark Lindner

Developing a Library Copyright Policy | EIFL - 1 views

  •  
    Could be useful if/when we decide to have a copyright policy
Mark Lindner

Guide to Finding Interesting Public Domain Works Online | The Public Domain Review - 1 views

  •  
    This guide is intended to assist people who are interested in exploring interesting works which have entered the public domain. It covers: Collecting leads Online Collections Legal Stuff Licensing When Does a Work Pass Into The Public Domain?
Sara Thompson

Should We Really ABOLISH the Term Paper? A Response to the NY Times | HASTAC - 1 views

  • And for my own account of the decision not to use term papers when I taught at Michigan State, you can check out a piece I published in Academe in Sept-Oct 2011.   In some ways, it is more assertive on this issue than Richtel's piece, and is highly critical of the establishment English Department that too-often forgets its own importance as society’s “keeper” of two of the three R’s of traditional literacy, namely “reading” and “‘writing.’”   I won’t rehearse my critique; here's the link:  http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2011/SO/Feat/davi.htm).
  • She is also working with composition teachers around the country who are documenting similar findings that, in fact, this generation comes in reading and writing more and better–and, yes, differently–than earlier ones, not worse.  Lunsford uses the same metrics to assess these students as were used to evaluate past ones.  Her website is:  http://www.stanford.edu/~lunsfor1/
  • We have a Word Press class website.  Students blog every week about the reading and project-based assignments they create.   The two students charged with leading the class that week have to respond to every blog.  The students respond to one another.  
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • When I put their semester's work into a data hopper, even I was shocked to find out that they were averaging around 1000 words per week,
  • I argue that the open architecture of the Web is built on the principle of diversity and maximum participation--feedback and editing
  • Students learn to evaluate one another's thinking and challenge one another--and, far more important, they learn from one another and correct themselves.  I cannot think of a better skill to take out into the world.
  • I respond more too.  Like my students, I feel like I'm not spending as many hours reading and grading term papers, but, I know, from the end-of-term data crunching again, that, in fact, I have spent more time responding to their writing than I used to. 
  • the tipping point in these classes is when someone the student doesn't know, an anonymous stranger, responds to their work.  When it is substantive, the student is elated and surprised that their words were taken seriously.   When it is rude or trollish, the student is offended.  Both responses are good.  The Internet needs more people committed to its improvement, to serious discourse.
  • As I often do with classes, I did a diagnostic, found that many of my students were woefully lacking in basic writing skills.  I asked them what they most wanted from a writing class, and quickly transformed the class into a "writing as if your life depended upon it" workshop.
  • The "final" in the class was for each student--with lots of readings by me and the rest of the class--to apply for three or four summer jobs and internships.  That year, every student landed a position. 
  • More recently, I asked graduate students why they often left their term papers until the end and, with sadness, they confessed it was often because the whole exercise of writing a research paper is so debilitating and terrifying they often developed writer's block or writer's anxiety and needed the deadline to motivate them to write.
Sara Thompson

BubCap is the TUAW Best of 2011 iPad accessory | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog - 1 views

  • These inexpensive little Home button covers (4 for US$5) hide the iPad or iPhone Home button to keep your kids from switching to another app and doing something fun like deleting all of your contacts or calling your boss. Apparently, a lot of parents need and use BubCaps, as they topped the reader voting in our TUAW Best of 2011 iPad accessory category.
Sara Thompson

A Model of Learning Objectives : Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy - 1 views

  •  
    Really great visual cross-section of cognitive process with knowledge dimensions.  Fascinating way to think about learning activities. 
fleschnerj

OPAC Survey - 1 views

  •  
    There are many more questions and results on this blog. This particular question just seemed worth pointing out. Have you ever suffered from "OPAC envy" when looking at someone else's OPAC?
Sara Thompson

Net Smart: How To Thrive Online - 1 views

  •  
    Interesting visual spin on the various literacies we want our students to learn. I'm hoping to find a video of the author speaking about this before diving into the book. 
Sara Thompson

I Can't Believe You're Throwing Out Books! | Magnificent Nose - 1 views

  •  
    I thought this was a great little perspective from another librarian who has done (and will do) a lot of weeding. 
Mark Lindner

Reading Critically - Interrogating Texts - Harvard Library LibGuides at Harvard Library - 1 views

  •  
    Six Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard
Mark Lindner

Tools of the Trade: A Library Starter Kit for Harvard Freshmen - Harvard College Library - 1 views

  •  
    A very well-designed resource for freshmen (and others, no doubt) at Harvard
fleschnerj

Fair-Use Guide Hopes to Solve Librarians' VHS-Cassette Problem - Wired Campus - The Chr... - 1 views

  •  
    The Association of Research Libraries might have a solution to what some librarians call "the VHS-cassette problem." Here's the scenario: An academic library has a collection of video tapes that is slowly deteriorating, thanks to the fragile nature of analog media.
Sara Thompson

Harvard Seeks to Jolt University Teaching - Teaching - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

  • In large part, the problem is that graduate students pursuing their doctorates get little or no training in how students learn. When these graduate students become faculty members, he said, they might think about the content they want students to learn, but not the cognitive capabilities they want them to develop.
  • Such approaches would demand much more of students and faculty. Students should be made to grapple with the material and receive authentic and explicit practice in thinking like an expert, Mr. Wieman said. Faculty would need to provide timely and specific feedback, and move beyond lectures in which students can sit passively receiving information.
  • Higher education once was immune, he said, until the spread of online learning, which will allow lower-cost providers to extend into the higher reaches of the marketplace. "Higher education," he said, "is vulnerable to disruption." And, while students are changing, several speakers described conventional teaching approaches as being ineffective.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "We assume that telling people things without asking them to actively process them results in learning," Mr. Wieman said. The conference, which also featured demonstrations of innovative approaches to teaching, was the first event in a new Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching
  • Take, for example, the lecture, which came up for frequent shellacking throughout the day. It is designed to transfer information, said Eric Mazur, professor of physics at Harvard. But it does not fully accomplish even this limited task. Lectures set up a dynamic in which students passively receive information that they quickly forget after the test. "They're not confronted with their misconceptions," Mr. Mazur said. "They walk out with a false sense of security."
  • The traditional lecture also fails at other educational goals: prodding students to make meaning from what they learn, to ask questions, extract knowledge, and apply it in a new context.
  • Asking students to explain concepts or to teach one another the material they have just learned are also effective.
  • Writing is often an effective pedagogical tool, too, several speakers said. For his history of psychology course, Mr. Roediger asks his students to send him short essays before each class meets. They respond to the reading. (Others at the conference who use this method said they sometimes ask their students to identify outstanding questions or relevant areas of their reading that have been left unexplored.) Mr. Roediger reads the one-page essays before class and works their thoughts into his comments.
fleschnerj

Scholastica and DIY Open Access Journals - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

shared by fleschnerj on 05 Jul 12 - No Cached
  •  
    With traditional journals suffering from rising costs and increased disinterest in print subscriptions, online open access is looking more appealing than ever. The team behind recently launched Scholastica is offering a new platform for those interested in joining the movement. Scholastica is designed to make setting up and managing an academic journal about as easy as configuring a Facebook group.
« First ‹ Previous 41 - 60 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page